Theory & Data Analysis Tools

The heart and the mind: an integrative approach to brain-body interactions in the zebrafish Our current U19 has focused primarily on Exteroception, which can be defined as the accumulated sensory experience originating from events in the outside world. However, all neural computation takes place in the context of the body, which is subject to the dynamics of hunger, fatigue, motivation and diurnal cycles.

PROJECT SUMMARY Many pain syndromes are notoriously refractory to almost all treatment and pose significant costs to patients and society. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for refractory pain disorders showed early promise but demonstration of long-term efficacy is lacking. Current DBS devices provide “open-loop” continuous stimulation and thus are prone to loss of effect owing to nervous system adaptation and a failure to accommodate natural fluctuations in chronic pain states.

Project Abstract Essential Tremor (ET) is a progressive disease that leads to significant disability and markedly diminished quality of life. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the ventralis intermedius (VIM) thalamus has been an effective treatment for ET control, but is associated with problematic side effects (e.g. dysarthia, imbalance) and may lose efficacy over time in people with severe ET. The ability to improve tremor control and reduce side effects with multifocal, current steering DBS techniques will be an important advance to the field.

Gait impairment and Freezing of gait (FOG), lead to falls, injury (even death), loss of independent living, and are common in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD), affecting over 7 million people worldwide. The incidence of neurodegenerative diseases increases with age and as the population lives longer, the societal consequences of FOG, will be very significant.

Project Summary/Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) refractory to treatment is marked by failure of fear extinction and its biological substrate, amygdala reactivity to trauma reminders13,14. Decades of research have clarified the neuronal mechanisms coordinating fear extinction and consolidation15. Fear cells and extinction cells in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) alter their firing rate based on the nature of the stimulus and the influence from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the ventral hippocampus (vHPC)16,17.

For many years brain-computer interfaces (BCI's) have been explored as a means of restoring communication to patients with Locked-In Syndrome (LIS), a devastating and often irreversible neurological condition in which cognition is intact but nearly all motor output from the brain is interrupted, effectively cutting off communication with the outside world. To date non-invasive BCI's (e.g.

Project Summary / Abstract Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) is a devastating form of childhood onset epilepsy with cognitive dysfunction and very frequent generalized onset seizures (GOS) often leading to injury. Driven by the lack of effective therapies and the demonstrated safety and efficacy of brain-responsive stimulation for medically intractable focal onset seizures (FOS), this study will test whether brain-responsive neurostimulation of thalamocortical networks (RNS-TCN) is a feasible strategy to treat LGS.

Project Summary Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to both motor and non-motor symptoms. While there is as yet no cure for PD, medical and surgical therapies have been developed that effectively target the motor symptoms of PD. Non-motor symptoms are far more disabling for patients, precede the onset of motor symptoms by a decade, are more insidious in onset, have been less apparent to clinicians, and are less effectively treated.

SUMMARY ABSTRACT More than 1.2 million people in the United States have a spinal cord injury (SCI), and each year there are 10,000 new cases. In the last few years, we have shown that neuromodulation using epidural stimulation of the lumbosacral spinal cord can activate latent neural circuits and restore voluntary movement, standing and stepping in individuals with chronic SCI. One participant in this study also reported gains in bladder function following training with spinal cord epidural stimulation.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Respiratory failure after spinal cord injury (SCI) impairs the health of the injured patients, and respiratory failure is the leading cause of death in patients with SCI. Treatment of respiratory failure consists of mechanical ventilation, in which a mechanical pump is used to facilitate air exchange with the lungs. Mechanical ventilation is invasive, costly, limiting, and carries with it a high risk of complications and death.